West=On=Track

History

Down from Claremorris on
the last train

The Irish Times (April 5th
1976)

Michael Finlan - Western
Notebook

AFTER 80 YEARS, the two passenger trains from
Claremorris, Co Mayo, and Limerick met for the last time in
Athenry Junction on Saturday, fixing a moment in time
forever to be looked back on through the mists of
nostalgia.

It was the end of the old Claremorris-Limerick passenger
run and from now there will be no trains to south on the
western seaboard. You can only go in the direction of
Dublin, and therein lies a message of some kind.

There was a sense of sad occasion on the last day and
people who ordinarily would never go near a train got aboard
the two trains that left Limerick and Claremorris at about
the same time, to share the experience of utter finality.
Many avid railway enthusiasts from as far away as England,
loaded down with notebooks, cameras, stopwatches and
technical manuals, also came along for the final jaunt. They
would pass through towns such as Tuam and Gort that may
never see a passenger train again.

I got aboard just before the 3 o'clock departure time
from Platform 2 in Claremorris. This town is now the only
rail junction in Mayo; further north on the Ballina line,
Manulla Junction was closed, along with Bellavary and
Foxford, in CIE's massive dismantling operation during the
'60s. The line from Claremorris to Sligo was also neutered
at that time. The five platforms at Claremorris seem awfully
redundant now.

Hugh Dawson, a veteran from the days of steam, was the
driver, Des Kelly the guard, and Jimmy Reilly the ticket
checker. Hugh and Des are being kept on, but Saturday was
Jimmy's last day after 29 years on the job. They're letting
him go at the age of 58, an awkward time for any man to be
looking for work, with the sparse days that are in it.

But Jimmy was a cheerful as the first day he ever rode
the lines down to Athenry and he played with the kids and
let everyone keep their tickets as souvenirs. "I'll be
taking a rest for a while now," he said.

Richard Wall, from Dublin, was only one of the many
members of the Irish Railway Record Society on board the
last train. "I'm sad to see this line go," he said. "There
has been a lot of protest from people since it was announced
that it was to be closed, but the people didn't support it
when they had a chance to, and if they had, this line would
continue to live."

It is hard to credit, but it is true that back before the
turn of the century, there were two railway stations in
Claremorris. The present station originally belonged to the
Midland Great Western, and just a mile south was the station
of the Great Southern line, which we passed through on the
way out.

The railway buffs knew every level crossing from there on
down to Athenry - Lisduff, Avenue, Cloonrane, Ilaun, Drim,
Kilerneen, Liskeavy. Fartamore, Brooklawn, Kilbannon. And
every dead station - Ballindine, Milltown, Castlegrove.

When we pulled into Athenry, Richard Wall told me: "This
is history now. You will see here four trains together for
the last time in this spot."We crossed the bridge to the
platform where the train from Limerick was waiting to take
us back to Claremorris. Then the two old warriors shunted
slowly down the tracks in opposite directions, moving from
the main lines to sidings, to make way for their betters
&endash; the mail train from Galway on its way to Dublin and
the 1.05 heading for Galway. These two VIPs loaded and
unloaded and hurried on their way, heedless of the brief
moment of history. The two underlings crept back onto the
main tracks, ready to finish their final journey.

Ours was the first to head out at 4.17. The train going
to Limerick would leave a few minutes later, down through
the dead stations of Craughwell, Ardrahan, Kiltartan and
Crusheen, and the barely living ones of Gort and Ennis.

On the way back, we stopped briefly at Ballyglunin, which
still has a faint pulse of life (they shot the train
sequences for "The Quiet Man" there in 1950). As we moved
out of Ballyglunin, the iron wheels rolled over the
detonators that had been set into the tracks and six loud
bangs were heard, a farewell volley like shots over a
grave.

There was a big gathering of townspeople waiting on the
platform in Tuam. They swarmed around the locomotive to
shake the hand of driver Hugh Dawson. They wouldn't be
seeing him or his train again. The train lingered longer
than usual, and finally, when it began to roll away on the
last leg to Claremorris, it was again saluted by a volley of
detonators.

At 5.15 we pulled into Claremorris beside the big
Westport train from Dublin.The Limerick-Claremorris line was
opened in 1894 and even though freight trains will still
roll along it, you could say that it died last Saturday.